COMPONENT 5. METHODOLOGIES FOR IMPROVING MEASUREMENT OF ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION AND PROBLEMS (All years). The aims of the proposed component are to: 1) Improve estimates of the mean and sources of variation in drink size and ethanol content for beer, wine and spirits drinks consumed at home through beaker size measurement and brand identification of subjects'usual drinks. 2) Estimate mean values and explore the sources of variation in on-premise beer, wine and spirits-based drinks. Bartender focus groups will explore perceptions of drink size and sources of variation by those who make the drinks. Results will be used to inform the design of intensive direct drink measurement in a small sample of bars and restaurants where a variety of drinks will be purchased on multiple visits. Drink size will be directly measured and the percentage of ethanol in each beverage will be determined by brand for beer, wine and straight spirits and will be measured using an Analox(R) Alcohol Analyzer for mixed spirits drinks. A 10-county random sample of 80 establishments of multiple types will be used to estimate the mean size and analyze key sources of variation in nine representative beer, wine and spirits drinks. 3) Improve estimates of ethanol intake measures from beer, wine, spirits and all beverages combined through the application of empirical drink ethanol content mean and variance estimates to NAS11 based on demographics and drink-specific questions in the survey. 4) Demonstrate the effect of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology when used during a telephone interview (in NAS11) on sensitive measures of alcohol use, alcohol-related problems, and risky behavior. 5) Within the NAS11 survey, the relationships between multiple measures of the same construct across time frames and question formats will be quantified and the sources and importance of differences will be analyzed in predictive models. 6) Exploratory analyses will compare alcohol measures in the NAS with those in three major survey series;The National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC), the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the National Household Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). These analyses will consider not only overall and demographic sub-group means and prevalence estimates but also the full distribution of responses. The ARG Center will continue to play a central role in the development, improvement and evaluation of methodologies for measuring diverse aspects of alcohol use and a wide range of alcohol-related problems and related health-risk behaviors. Results will be disseminated to researchers, practitioners and the public.